I'm not going to pile on to the vast numbers of people who are crying about the state of journalism in the US. There has never really been a golden age of journalism, as people seem to think. It's just the mind's eye playing tricks as it looks backwards.

However, that doesn't mean journalists are exempt from criticism. Everyone has been talking about how CBS News and Sy Hersh broke the Iraqi abuse story. But here's an interesting note from Richard Pyle of the AP on Romanesko's Media News

Hersh, CBS didn't break prison abuse story
5/13/2004 2:50:10 PM

From RICHARD PYLE: With all due respect to my erstwhile colleague and softball teammate Sy Hersh, neither he nor "60 Minutes II" exactly "broke" the Iraq prison abuse story, as some others have suggested.

On Nov. 1, 2003, the Associated Press carried an 1,800-word story from Baghdad about alleged mistreatment by Americans in three detention centers, including Abu Ghraib. In that story, AP Special Correspondent Charles Hanley quoted former Iraqi prisoners as describing psychological abuse, deprivation, beatings, detainees punished by hours lying bound in the sun, being attacked by dogs, deprived of sufficient water and food, spending days with hoods over their heads, sick men dying in crowded tents.

The story said senior U.S. officials had not responded to specific
questions about the alleged abuses, submitted by AP two weeks earlier (Oct. 18). It did cite then-unknown Brig Gen Janis Karpinski's comment, reported in Arab media, that prisoners were treated humanely and fairly.

As Hanley noted in another story last weekend, the queries were never answered, and the official silence continued until January 2004, when military authorities announced that investigations were under way.

The original AP report did not have the benefit of the graphic photos
that accompanied the more recent New Yorker and CBS accounts. But that hardly explains the lack of official response, or why other news organizations didn't follow up.

The last sentence raises an interesting question: why didn't other news organizations follow up? At the time this was probably seen unsubstantiated reports from a group of Iraqis with blood on their hands. Rather egotistical. The silence by the government was actually a stroke of genius here. By not acknowledging it at all, the story almost went away. If they'd even said "we're investigating" during the initial queries, the story would have been huge. Instead, they basically dismissed the Iraqi complaints and the media did the same.

So while our media is free, it doesn't seem to think that way.

I’m reading the stories about Nick Berg, the American beheaded on video tape by his captors, supposedly in retaliation for the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Iraq. Two things strike me.

First, both Daniel Pearl and Berg were told to make statements before their executions. In both, they were told to identify their families. While Pearl was told to identify himself as a Jew, Berg’s information comes across as distinctly Jewish—his father is Michael, his brother and sister, David and Sarah, his last name. I doubt this is a coincidence. The media has said nothing about this, but the fact is, this is Arab militants drawing a direct line between Israel and the US. The only indication I've found of his religion is a small mention in a Kansas City newspaper that he carried a Jewish prayer shawl. More attention should be paid.

Second, Berg was held by US forces as his father said “without due process.” Berg is a US citizen, he should be afforded rights that befit a US citizen. Still, I can’t help shaking the feeling that you can’t ask others to live up to a higher standard if you’re not willing to live to that standard yourself. By that I mean, why should only US citizens be treated fairly? Why shouldn’t we ask that ALL prisoners undergo some sort of due process.

Yes, I know that in wartime, things change. But has Congress declared this war? Was there a vote that I missed? Constitutionally, only Congress can wage war. The reason for that is simple: to keep a single individual from having ultimate control over the military.

Kinda scary.